Stress Management In Disasters
It is universally accepted that optimum levels of stress can act as a creative,
motivational force that can drive people to achieve incredible feats (eustress).
Chronic or traumatic stress (distress) on the other hand, is potentially very
destructive and can deprive people of physical and mental health, and at times
even of life itself.
Emergency response personnel are unique in that they dedicate their time and
energy in assisting persons during stressful times of their lives, for example,
after disasters such as hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, etc. By
doing this however, they are themselves repeatedly exposed to very stressful
situations. Even though their training prepares them to deal with such situations,
the reality is that they have a higher than normal risk for developing post-traumatic
stress syndromes, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Hence, it
must be deduced that the repeated exposure of emergency response personnel to
critical incident stress does have a potentially deleterious effect on their
well-being. It has also been found that the psychological well-being of emergency
response personnel dealing with emergency situations can greatly affect the
overall outcome of such situations, including the prognosis of the primary victims
of the event.
This workbook, Stress Management in Disasters, and the companion workbook,
Insights into the Concept of Stress,
were designed to provide the basic training material for persons who will be
providing such a service.
This book can be ordered from PAHO's Emergency Preparedness Program (disaster-publications@paho.org),
or can be downloaded, by chapters, as PDF files. You need to have installed
Adobe Acrobat Reader to read these files. It can be obtained free of charge
from the Adobe
Website.
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